July 17, 2013

Inbreeding and cognitive ability

From the paper:

Our results show that within a representative UK population sample there was a weak nominally significant association between burden of autosomal runs of homozygosity and higher non-verbal cognitive ability. This nominal association with increased cognitive ability is counterintuitive when compared with the results from more extreme inbreeding based on pedigree information.1, 2, 3 A potential explanation for this direction of effect is that individuals with higher cognitive ability might show greater positive assortative mating, which would lead to increased homozygosity at loci for higher cognitive ability in their offspring. However, in a separate sample we showed that greater positive assortative mating was not associated with higher cognitive ability. While these findings seem to provide clear evidence against this hypothesis, it is possible that the genome-wide genetic findings reflect historical mating habits that no longer exist today. It should also be noted that there was a reduction in the standard deviations for spousal correlations in the increased cognitive ability groups by an average of 6% compared with the decreased cognitive ability group (see Table 3), which could reflect lesser genetic variability in the high ability couples or a ceiling effect on the cognitive tests. This lesser phenotypic variability at the high ability end would have a small effect in reducing the spouse correlations and potentially confound our analysis.

Genetic variants were found to have a slight (though significant) reduction in minor allele frequency across the genome in individuals in the top quartile of general cognitive ability compared with those in the bottom quartile (means of 21823 and 21824), which in turn could lead to increased homozygosity by chance. This could indicate that these individuals descend from subtly different ancestral populations that experienced loss of variation. This difference in ancestry may be correlated with either genetic variants for improved cognitive ability, or with social or environmental backgrounds that lead to higher cognitive ability, though our analysis of FROH corrected for socio-economic status and population stratification. Another potential explanation is that the reduced minor allele frequency in the high cognitive ability is reflective of the less frequent allele being deleterious due to selection against it. As a result, these high-functioning individuals could benefit from having more major alleles at fixation and a reduced burden of rarer deleterious variants.

Overall, these results highlight the importance of understanding mating habits, such as inbreeding and assortative mating, when investigating the genetic architecture of complex traits such as cognitive ability. The results certainly suggest that there is no large effect of FROH on reduced cognitive ability, the expected direction of effect. The nominally significant associations found in this study may even suggest that in the case of non-verbal cognitive ability, beneficial associations with homozygosity at specific loci might outweigh the negative effects of genome-wide inbreeding and that the relationship between inbreeding and cognitive ability may be more complicated than previously thought.

Genome-wide estimates of inbreeding in unrelated individuals and their association with cognitive ability

Robert A Power et al.

The consequence of reduced cognitive ability from inbreeding has long been investigated, mainly restricted to cousin–cousin marriages. Molecular genetic techniques now allow us to test the relationship between increased ancestral inbreeding and cognitive ability in a population of traditionally unrelated individuals. In a representative UK sample of 2329 individuals, we used genome-wide SNP data to estimate the percentage of the genome covered by runs of homozygous SNPs (ROH). This was tested for association with general cognitive ability, as well as measures of verbal and non-verbal ability. Further, association was tested between these traits and specific ROH. Burden of ROH was not associated with cognitive ability after correction for multiple testing, although burden of ROH was nominally associated with increased non-verbal cognitive ability (P=0.03). Moreover, although no individual ROH was significantly associated with cognitive ability, there was a significant bias towards increased cognitive ability in carriers of ROH (P=0.002). A potential explanation for these results is increased positive assortative mating in spouses with higher cognitive ability, although we found no evidence in support of this hypothesis in a separate sample. Reduced minor allele frequency across the genome was associated with higher cognitive ability, which could contribute to an apparent increase in ROH. This may reflect minor alleles being more likely to be deleterious.

42 comments:

It's not mroe complicated than thought, the answer is obvious. Inbreeding IS deleterious on average.

However, it preserves good qualities in a population as well, which is why horses and dogs and most crops are so highly inbred. If you spend even a tiny time trying to breed plants or animals you will give up on random outbreeding crosses immediately, and also on "selfs" which can have benefits but mainly lead to lots of runts.

That is, inbreeding is preserving intelligence of one of the smartest world populations against waves and waves of immigration, but overall they are probably still degrading compared to before due to bad effects of inbreeding.

Average IQ has plummeted in UK in 30 years, it's because they are being replaced wholesale.

Probably worth pointing out that the UK population is over 92% white British and that net immigration into Britain is pretty much zero. The (slight) decline in IQ mentioned by the previous poster happened over the past 10 years not 30 so there is no correlation with immigration.

My job requires me to take cognitive, numerical and literacy tests occasionally and you can definitely get better at them with practice. I suspect the fall over the past 10 years may relate to less value being placed on the tests by the participants due to a different attitude to traditional written exams by the population as a whole and children in particular.

As for inbreeding conferring a particular advantage this isn't surprising. Inbreeding is only deleterious if a harmful gene becomes fixed in a population (eg Tay Sachs disease in Ashkenazi Jews).

You're having a laugh aren't you? The British being replaced? I assure you that is not the case. I am white British/Irish so don't suggest I'm non-white defending non-white immigration.

I think what you're doing is assuming that initial third-world immigrants' fertility rate with subsequent generations will not change. Assuming that is a fatal error. 3rd generation Asian and African people are having less and less children whereas white people's fertility is increasing. Many non-whites who do have children are having mixed race children with native ethnicity people. Therefore, give it 300 years and the descendants's of today's immigrants will be mostly white. I've known many people (my brother included) who are marrying people of a different race. There is no replacement, only an increased genetic pool which can only be a good thing. Many areas of the UK have been swimming in a very shallow gene pool for too long.

Secondly, if you think some races are inherently brighter than others then shame on you. That pseudo-scientific racist thought is utterly redundant and believing it is simply a waste of your time. If you weren't implying that I apologise although it sounds like you are.

Thirdly, IQ is not a useful measure of intelligence as it is euro-centric. A hunter from Africa would fail miserably at an IQ test because he's been brought up differently. Equally, a European couldn't survive in the wild African savannah for very long whereas a hunter would. Does that make the European stupid? Of course, that is an extreme example but it shows the problem with IQ tests. It is more a test of how Western your education and family upbringing is.

Its because the education system is declining. This is a cultural/political effect not genetic.

In some schools now you do not give a prize to the child that does best in mathematics. Everyone gets one for completion. This tells the kids that effort and success are not important.

Increasingly you have to pay for good education and facilities in schools. Scholarships to university are no longer available on the basis of ability. So the able poor work at MacDonalds and the more privileged (including those prepared to invest in coaching) are rewarded. Ultimately this leads to survival of the most privileged, with dire consequences for us all.

The only effect immigrants are likely to be having is depressing the education of girls. Which I suppose leads to problems for the next generation.

"Average IQ has plummeted in UK in 30 years, it's because they are being replaced wholesale."

Thats happening in "all the western hemisphere" atm.

USA aswell as Germany.

I dont know for Asian countries through.

It was nicknamed the "MTV Effect" in the 90s (a psychologist blamed music TV to lower IQs of humans)

Somewhen between 2000 and 2010 someone named it "Digital dementia" and had the hypothesis, that the use of internet and computers is lowering peoples IQs.

Its also not 30 years in Germany.The suposed turning point of IQ in Germany is 1990 and the test age is 18. Wich makes the turning point in birthyears to be 1972 or in other words, Germans of the age 41 are the smartest Germans. Lower IQ so more far from 41, no matter what direction.

@ hairysteve "and that net immigration into Britain is pretty much zero"

What in the name of god has NET immigration got to do with it?

Immigration into Britain remains at over half a million per year, one every minute. The fact that so many Britons flee this multiculti cess pool means that we will be replaced even quicker -- not slower.

quote:

The 500,000 immigrants in the 12 months to September 2012 compares to 581,000 in the previous period.

@ Annie Mouse "Its because the education system is declining. This is a cultural/political effect not genetic."

Another recent study compared reflex times, which correlates with genetic-g, with Victorian reflex times and they demonstrated a genetic decline in general intelligence equivalent to a fall of 15 IQ points.

The decline has been demonstrated to be genetic not MTV, Ipad or any other pop cultural phenomenon.

quote:

In conclusion however these findings do indicate that with respect to 'genetic g' [general intelligence] the Victorians were indeed substantially cleverer than modern populations.

@ El MediciCertainly one can make a statement that some populations have higher or lower average IQ than others, since this is measurable. I do not find this kind of statement to be "racist". Whether IQ is an effective measure of intelligence across cultures is a different question.

Human intelligence is a very complicated and poorly understood phenomenon, with both complex genetic components and complex environmental components. I do believe that the variation in genetic intelligence potential among human populations is probably very small, since humans in general differ so little genetically.

@ Fanty "Victorian Britan having an average IQ of 115 (6 points higher than modern Japan)? Based on pure GUESS?"

No, based on medically recorded reflex times which correlates with genetic-g. How is that "pure guess"?

General intelligence (g factor) has been estimated to be up to 80% genetic hereditary.

"alost identical in DNA"

Clearly not identical in the genes that contribute to higher cognition.

"I doubt drop of IQ based on migration since the victorian age."

Immigration is only one dysgenic factor, also the growth of the urban lower classes with higher birth rates and lower IQs. Clearly South Asians and Sub-Saharan Africans have much lower IQs on average than the British, so of course they lower the civic average.

But dont assume that smaller scale immigration going back to the 19th century has not affected the average IQ. The present study suggests that homogenous breeding correlates with higher cognition. We wont know exactly what is happening until further studies are undertaken.

Wow, it seems that politically correct slaves of the System (Annie Mouse, hairysteve20 etc.) are so schocked by the fact that ALL the IQ TESTS in ANY TIME and ANY PLACE have always proved that non-Whites and non-Mongoloids have by far an INFERIOR IQ compared to Europeans and Far Easterners.

Average Negroid IQ its 65 , average Pygmy IQ its 54 , average Australoid IQ its 62 , average European IQ its 100 , average Amerindian IQ its 85 , average Mongoloid IQ its 105. End of the story. You like it or not.

A person with an IQ inferior to 70 its considered MENTALLY RETARDED.

And this fact its perfectly rational, obvious, and PROVED by the history of CIVILIZATION.

Negroids and Pigmies NEVER had a Great Civilization , and when Whites came here found prehistoric "humans" that were living in the Paleolithic , analphabet savages that were living in mud huts practicing cannibalism.

No Philosophy , no Architecture , no Poetry , no Engeenering , no Science , no Technology. And now (in the '900) we found that average Negroid IQ its 65. Absolutely linear , congruous.

TO ALL OF YOU,

AVERAGE IQ BY COUNTRY :

http://www.eutimes.net/2009/11/iq-by-country/

HONG KONG 108

SOUTH KOREA 106

JAPAN 105

CHINA 105

ITALY 102

ICELAND 101

AUSTRIA 101

NETHERLANDS 101

SWEDEN 100

TURKEY 90

MEXICO 89

PERU 88

INDONESIA 88

BOLIVIA 87

LEBANON 86

MOROCCO 85

- NEGROID COUNTRIES:

ZIMBABWE 66

SENEGAL 65

CONGO 64

SIERRA LEONE 64

MOZAMBIQUE 64

SAINT LUCIA 62

EQUATORIAL GUINEA 59 (!)

China (Hong Kong), the country of the Chinese Empire and of a millenary Civilization: 108

Italy, the country of the Romans, the Renaissance, Columbus and Leonardo da Vinci: 102

"You're having a laugh aren't you? The British being replaced? I assure you that is not the case. I am white British/Irish so don't suggest I'm non-white defending non-white immigration.

I think what you're doing is assuming that initial third-world immigrants' fertility rate with subsequent generations will not change."

When your immigration rate goes up and up then it doesn't really matter what fertility rates are.

"Assuming that is a fatal error. 3rd generation Asian and African people are having less and less children whereas white people's fertility is increasing. Many non-whites who do have children are having mixed race children with native ethnicity people. Therefore, give it 300 years and the descendants's of today's immigrants will be mostly white."

I've been to london recently, let me know when it is "highly white" lol. Not holding my breath.

" I've known many people (my brother included) who are marrying people of a different race. There is no replacement, only an increased genetic pool which can only be a good thing. Many areas of the UK have been swimming in a very shallow gene pool for too long."

It probably made me out to think inbreeding is good or something. I absolutely agree that inbreeding too much is not good. Bringing in new blood is helpful to any area especially one that's been relatively closed off til now.

Evolution works and the good genes will eventually rise to the top and become dominant in everyone. But ONLY if your immigration is not so fast it wipes out the natives and only if the people you bring in actually integrate.

"Secondly, if you think some races are inherently brighter than others then shame on you. That pseudo-scientific racist thought is utterly redundant and believing it is simply a waste of your time. If you weren't implying that I apologise although it sounds like you are."

Genetics make you intelligent or not. It's not a magic apple or something. UK does/did have one of the highest IQs, now it's been slipping for a looong time (not just ten years as someone said). For the longest time it's pulled in the brightest people and been a world center. Now it's not, and the smarter people are fleeing or have fled in droves on to the next big thing and open immigration from random places, of cheap laborers, has replaced them. You don't have to talk about race to realize what effect that will have, you know you aren't getting their brightest or best but their problems.

"Thirdly, IQ is not a useful measure of intelligence as it is euro-centric. "

Not true. IQ correlates strongly to brain size. IQ also correlates strongly to sperm motility, meaning IQ and fitness are strongly correlated. Meaning it's a pretty good but not infallible test. It's correct, on average.

"A hunter from Africa would fail miserably at an IQ test because he's been brought up differently." No, that's not true either it's a fantasy. Only if you don't believe in evolution could that be true. Anthropologists today, by and large, are more politician than scientist.

"Equally, a European couldn't survive in the wild African savannah for very long whereas a hunter would. Does that make the European stupid? "Maybe he's not adapted to that environment. Malaria is no fun.

"Of course, that is an extreme example but it shows the problem with IQ tests. It is more a test of how Western your education and family upbringing is. "

No, that's just not true.

You can believe as you want but there's no real science to back up anything you have said. It's just politically motivated social science blathering.

If you look at darwin's views he was quite racist. But he was wrong in that selection wins out, so the "primitive" people are not doomed in any way, they are quickly gaining any positive genes as soon as they come into contact with the cosmopolitan world.

Fanty, reflexes are probably a better measure of general brain health than IQ test. Both of them correlate pretty well with each other and with other things we'd say represent "fitness". IE it works.

But victorian England was a lot different than today. You were pulling the best minds from all over the world. There had also been a BIG recent genetic bottleneck, land enclosure. Bottlenecks are what lead to evolution.

Now you have mass immigration of low wage workers and it's in general just a lot easier to get there, and you've had mass migration OUT of UK as well so it's a completely different, opposite situation.

Plus if anyone knows the higher scores on those victorian tests of reflex I'd be interested to know. After a couple tries on one of those online ones I was 160-165. In a few studies they got reactions around that level for average college kids so that swedish study might be mismeasuring.

But I was stricken by how the average for the people taking it online is around 220. That's what I'd expect to get while drunk or something. No one seems to do much better than 140 on there. Comparing the high end is probably more important though.

I wouldn't be surprised if environment factors are killing people's IQs, too. I suspect we will see IQs plummet due to genetically modified foods for example. It's not just humans growing more fat but dogs, chimps, and everyone eating that crap so I doubt that's coincidence. Plus birth weights are dropping as well, always a sign of general bad health.

"Another recent study compared reflex times, which correlates with genetic-g, with Victorian reflex times and they demonstrated a genetic decline in general intelligence equivalent to a fall of 15 IQ points."

Yeah I read that paper too. Firstly the whole premise that reaction time correlates with intelligence is faulty. Secondly they did not look at genetics at all.

In that time general fitness levels have fallen. That alone is enough to have affected reaction times.

Annie, it DOES correlate, that's a FACT. It's not open to debate, but a numerical comparison.

Just like bigger brain correlates with intelligence at a .4 ratio. For HEIGHT the genetic correlation is lower, to give perspective.

There's no need to look at genetics and it's an emotional and pointless exercise to get into "race" but obviously some people are inherently smarter than others.

IQ, reaction times, and specific genes all correlate to each other. Intelligence isn't the same for everyone, that's a magic fantasy made up by the politically correct police that leads to nonsense studies like this one.

WHY IS INBREEDING CAUSING MORE SMARTNESS? We may never solve this mystery. Well, they won't if they always discard the results they don't like....

IQ tests are not useful. Look up the critique of them. It is not surprising different areas of the world have different IQs as they have different cultures of education and upbringing.

Also, in regards to London. It has always been a place unlike the rest of Britain. My ancestors moved to inner London to work on the docks from Ireland in the early 1800s. They lived in self-segregated Roman Catholic communities. They married only in their culture. Guess what? Social commentators at the time said how Celts were the worst race in the world, how they were unintelligent compared to the Anglo-Saxons. After WW2 most moved out of London to the suburbs, as my grandfather did. The next generation then moved away from the South-East altogether as my father was born in Yorkshire. As we became richer we integrated and now Irish Brits are seen as being as British as anyone else.

This is what is happening with the Asian and Black population. In the last 10 years (I live in Yorkshire) my area has attracted many middle class ETHNIC MINORITIES who have left London. London as it is now will not be the same in 50 years. The poor, ethnic minority moves in, segregates, becomes more economically richer, moves out, integrates.

Immigration is not as big an issue as it was 10 years ago. Non-EU immigration is now being curtailed, which I agree with, and it is now incredibly difficult to bring foreign spouses in. The growth in minority in the next 50 years will mostly be birth rate which will even out over time. Look at the statistics of East Asian women. They first had nearly 7 children on average. Now it's down to 2-3. Britain at it's most multi-racial will be 75% white with a significant number of mixed race people.

To others who wish to say other races are less intelligent. It is ridiculous. I've worked with a huge number of different ethnicities. White, Asian, Black etc and all are as intelligent as each other. Education is the biggest divider.

As a grandchild of immigrants to the UK I must remember to tell all of the Oxbridge graduates, Company Directors and award winning sportsmen in my extended family that their presence in the country is reducing its average IQ.

I think we should remember that Britain is not London. Until recently I lived in Southwark and worked in Central London.

Southwark itself is largely Afro-Caribbean and all the better for it. The area is poor but it is also vibrant and friendly. London is a world city and it would die if people were not allowed to settle there from all over the world. It attracts the best and brightest from Africa, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

For the UK as a whole (not England as quoted above) the white British population is over 90% and though the culture may change slightly because of immigration on the whole it will not be substantially affected. Why? Because immigrants are not monocultural. Africans, Asians and Eastern Europeans all have very different cultures and no one group exceeds 1 or 2% of the population. How could 1 or 2% impose their culture on 98 or 99%?

I am not sure how a previous poster decided on one trip to Central London that the UK is full of immigrants. I suspect he may have seen a lot of non white people and decided that they were all immigrants but he may be confusing someone's colour with their immigration status.

El Medici, I am quite well aquainted with how celtic people have been treated in the isles and in the USA.

"IQ tests are not useful. Look up the critique of them. It is not surprising different areas of the world have different IQs as they have different cultures of education and upbringing.

Also, in regards to London. It has always been a place unlike the rest of Britain. My ancestors moved to inner London to work on the docks from Ireland in the early 1800s. They lived in self-segregated Roman Catholic communities. They married only in their culture. Guess what? Social commentators at the time said how Celts were the worst race in the world, how they were unintelligent compared to the Anglo-Saxons. After WW2 most moved out of London to the suburbs, as my grandfather did. The next generation then moved away from the South-East altogether as my father was born in Yorkshire. As we became richer we integrated and now Irish Brits are seen as being as British as anyone else.

This is what is happening with the Asian and Black population. In the last 10 years (I live in Yorkshire) my area has attracted many middle class ETHNIC MINORITIES who have left London. London as it is now will not be the same in 50 years. The poor, ethnic minority moves in, segregates, becomes more economically richer, moves out, integrates.

Immigration is not as big an issue as it was 10 years ago. Non-EU immigration is now being curtailed, which I agree with, and it is now incredibly difficult to bring foreign spouses in. The growth in minority in the next 50 years will mostly be birth rate which will even out over time. Look at the statistics of East Asian women. They first had nearly 7 children on average. Now it's down to 2-3. Britain at it's most multi-racial will be 75% white with a significant number of mixed race people.

To others who wish to say other races are less intelligent. It is ridiculous. I've worked with a huge number of different ethnicities. White, Asian, Black etc and all are as intelligent as each other. Education is the biggest divider. "

First off, I didn't make this about race. That is just the politically correct police stepping in as they do any time IQ comes up.

Second, my comments stand regardless of what you think that IQ means. You simply aren't measuring the same people any more. It's much different today with fast, cheap travel. It's also a lot different to get the best brains of the world than to be importing lots of cheap laborers.

Third, IQ does mean something. It's not some kind of a conspiracy theory or something. When you get a strong correlation between things it has some meaning, it's just not always clear what it is. I'm willing to accept that obviously in the heart of africa it's probably just meaningless to measure IQ because they are mostly illiterate. But on the other hand it's pure fantasy to think that literally everyone is exactly the same.

That is the only politically correct supposition but it's obviously false. The key is to judge people on their own merits not ascribe things to people they don't possess. We have way more people going to college nowadays and the net result has been to make college standards go down the drain.

Forgive me for double posting again but maybe this will get through and make more sense.

We either believe in genetics affecting intelligence, or we don't. We also either believe that IQ test has at least some validity or not.

So if we don't believe these two things, then there is no reason to do a study like this on genetics and IQ tests. Is this not the case? Or at the least as many people here claim if they really don't believe in IQ tests how is it you are reading this then commenting?

However if we DO believe these things, ie we are on planet earth and not a made up fantasy world, we have to deal with real facts. People in some countries have much different IQ scores and the IQ seems to pass down the generations, almost like it's genetic or something.

So once we recognize this (and really science has recognized it or studies like this one would have zero meaning) we need to deal with reality not make stuff up to go along with some ridiculous political agendas. That's why we get stuff like the out of africa theory where mankind suddenly evolved from magic (and since then, evolution completely stopped) and conquered the world at light speed. It's just brain killing nonscience.

And if the reverse is true I'm super angry my parents never had me learn to be a professional athlete or actor. I'd like to think I'm smarter than everyone at NASA too, if it's just a matter of what classes I take then I guess I gave up too easily.

@ El Medici "Britain at it's most multi-racial will be 75% white with a significant number of mixed race people."

25% percent of babies born in Britain now are born to first generation immigrants. If we include babies born to second generation immigrants then the sum of immigrant babies must already be 30-35% in Britain as a whole and higher in England. Ethnics continue to have much higher birth rates.

quote:

One in four British babies are now children of immigrants

There were 808,000 births in the UK last year, of which 196,000 were children born to non-UK born women - or 24 per cent.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows there has been a steady increase in the number of children born to mothers who were born abroad since 2001, when the figure stood at 15.3 per cent.

The ONS said fertility rates for non-UK born women are higher than those born in the UK. The total fertility rate for women born in the UK is 1.89 children each, while for those born outside the UK the figure is 2.28.

Over half a million new immigrants are added each year and a similar number flee the country. Our people have evacuated the larger cities, especially the young. It is clear that the indigenous white British will become a minority in a few decades and all studies confirm that trend. The political and media elite has effectively imposed genocide on our indigenous nation. We never wanted mass immigration and we never voted for it.

I don't like to involve myself in politics on this blog, but I'll make an exception:

As a grandchild of immigrants to the UK I must remember to tell all of the Oxbridge graduates, Company Directors and award winning sportsmen in my extended family that their presence in the country is reducing its average IQ.

This isn't how averages work, is it? The average is explicitly the sum of all members of the class in question divided by that number. Selecting individual members of that class and dividing it by their number isn't an average for the wider group to which they belong.

Southwark itself is largely Afro-Caribbean and all the better for it.

So if you feel that a preponderance of either your group or a related group (depending on your ethnicity) in a region is a positive thing, how can you chastise members of another group for feeling similiarly positive about the preponderance of their own group and correspondingly negative about any lack of said preponderance?

The area is poor but it is also vibrant and friendly. London is a world city and it would die if people were not allowed to settle there from all over the world. It attracts the best and brightest from Africa, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

Yes, London as a multicultural/ethnic city would die as a multicultural/ethnic city if it were no longer multicultural/ethnic. Profound.

For the UK as a whole (not England as quoted above) the white British population is over 90% and though the culture may change slightly because of immigration on the whole it will not be substantially affected. Why? Because immigrants are not monocultural. Africans, Asians and Eastern Europeans all have very different cultures and no one group exceeds 1 or 2% of the population. How could 1 or 2% impose their culture on 98 or 99%?

I'm fairly sure the comments to which you were objecting were referring to ethnicity, not culture.

I am not sure how a previous poster decided on one trip to Central London that the UK is full of immigrants. I suspect he may have seen a lot of non white people and decided that they were all immigrants but he may be confusing someone's colour with their immigration status.

Immigrants and descendants of recent immigrants are interchangeable terms in discussions of genetics.

IQ tests are not useful. Look up the critique of them. It is not surprising different areas of the world have different IQs as they have different cultures of education and upbringing.

I don't put great stock in IQ results either, especially on a global level, but -- I'm going to go on a hunch -- you seem to be dismissing them on the basis of how disagreeable their conclusions are (since your comment implies that you think the fact that criticisms exist suffices for a wholesale rejection of the object of their criticism -- this is characteristic of someone desperately wishing to cast off a burden). This isn't science. If you find yourself more receptive to the pros than the cons of a debate, you've already taken a personal step toward the disturbing trend of politicising science.

As we became richer we integrated and now Irish Brits are seen as being as British as anyone else.

Not really. I'm unbiased on the issue, since I have ancestry from every corner of the British Isles, including Ireland, but the above is simply an incorrect statement. Nobody sees a tracksuit-wearing Scouser called Callum Gallagher as being as 'British as anyone else'. People as a rule are always happy to reject association with the underirable by any means, and when an obvious escape-route is presented them, they'll take it every time. I'm sure most people, implicitly or explicitly, assume that someone with an Irish surname has a higher than average probability of dwelling in a council house and not being very bright.

This is what is happening with the Asian and Black population. In the last 10 years (I live in Yorkshire) my area has attracted many middle class ETHNIC MINORITIES who have left London. London as it is now will not be the same in 50 years. The poor, ethnic minority moves in, segregates, becomes more economically richer, moves out, integrates.

Since I live in Yorkshire and the above doesn't describe my experience, I can only conclude that these 'integrated' middle-class ethnic minorities still congregate together even in their middle-class migration habits.

Britain at it's most multi-racial will be 75% white with a significant number of mixed race people.

Sloppy thinking in the extreme. For the above to be true, it would require that immigration and emigration (of whites) halted completely and the 25% non-white population from that point onwards reproduced only within itself, and that the birth rates of both whites (and are you including Poles and their descendants in this group? Since they're not particularly genetically close to Britons) and non-whites remained roughly equal, or that the white population's birth rate exceded that of non-whites to the degree necessary to keep the 75% balance despite further immigration and emigration.

What would actually happen at the point of 75% white, 25% non-white, would be that the 25%, even if their birth rate were equal to the 75%, would introgress into the white population generation by generation, reducing the white population significantly each time and drastically expanding the mixed-race population.

To others who wish to say other races are less intelligent. It is ridiculous. I've worked with a huge number of different ethnicities. White, Asian, Black etc and all are as intelligent as each other. Education is the biggest divider.

On a personal level I'd agree with the above, though I'd change the wording to 'are all as unintelligent as each other', but needless to say, the above is anecdotal and unscientific.

Firstly, in regards to IQ and other races. No serious non-biased scientist anywhere believes different races to have different intelligence levels. Differences in IQ levels from different populations are explained by social factors such as education, nutrition etc by experts. Of course, they may be wrong, but the majority opinion dismisses Africans from being stupider than Whites and Whites stupider than some Jewish groups etc as is commonly believed.

Secondly, if you look at the birth rates of minority populations in the UK, they're declining quite rapidly while the White British birth rate is climbing slowly. In the next 20 years (maybe less) they'll be close to equal. Yes, Pakistani and Indian mothers have historically had lots of kids. But their children today are not following that trend. I know many 3rd generation British Asians. None are engaged in an arranged marriage from Pakistan as was the norm before. None are having children at the rate of their parents. Incredibly, some have had children with white people. This is because they no longer feel attached to their ethnic homeland and they no longer subscribe to their parent's strict religion. To pretend these minority communities will continue following their family abroad in birth rates is wrong. Recent research has confirmed that migrant groups move towards the birthrate of their hosts.

Non-EU migration is being curtailed and it is harder to bring spouses in. With population growth the government will take further steps in the coming years to stop all non-EU immigration as a necessity especially with food and energy shortages, most likely because the British population won't accept more non-White immigration on New Labour levels. It is important to remember that Europe is a very right wing continent. If the economy continues to worsen, and it will with rising oil prices and food prices then the Far Right will most likely gain power over any socialists/communists. What happens then is grim and has been witnessed before. Europe will stay white whichever way. Peaceful birth rate equality and intermarrying or violent action. To anybody who supports violent action then I pity you, my experience with people who are paranoid around immigration and race is that they often support neo-Nazism on the quiet. Someone's race really shouldn't be more important than their personality.

25% of babies born to foreign mothers is an interesting statistic. However, how many are from Irish, Polish, French etc White ethnic groups? Probably many, who will grow up British and if they have a White British father will be seen as British with a British surname. I am one of those. My mother is not a British citizen yet I have always been assumed to be White British 100% until I tell someone otherwise.

If you care about the actual British genetics then yes, a fair bit will be replaced. But ask why you care. You can't see it with your eyes walking down the road. Unless you think it's superior?

All minorities will slowly be absorbed and their descendants will look White British only they will have some unusual foreign genetics such as those White men in a North Yorkshire village who have West African Y-haplogroups.

In regards to Irish Brits. Aside from recent migrants (Post-ww2) no-one cares if you say ''most of my family migrated from Ireland in the 1800s''. A lot of Irish surnames are assumed to be British by many anyway. The Northern Ireland/IRA issue affects recent migrants but in regards to your great grandparents no one cares at all.

Now to Yorkshire. My neighbouring towns are increasingly wealthy. White British Londoners and Black Londonders are increasingly apparent. They are also having mixed race kids. Those mixed race kids will likely have children with white people etc. It has always worked this way. Poor migrants' descendants have always worked their way out of the poor inner city areas. To deny that is to ignore the facts.

By the way, my last comment was not aimed at anyone in particular so please don't assume I was calling anybody a Neo-Nazi on here.

However, it must be remember that if you think genetics is more important than physical appearances in determining race then it is only a thin line towards weird eugenic theories.

There are no pure races in Europe and never have been. If you think there is then you haven't been paying attention to this blog or reading history.

I'm not some ultra-leftist hippy Islam loving person. I don't want mass immigration any more than most people. The idea of White Britons being a minority in England (not for the first time haha bad history joke)is scary to me.

I can't ignore the evidence or my personal experiences however. Non-EU immigration is falling. Birth rates in 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants is the same as White Britons. Many people are having mixed race children who will themselves produce children who look mostly white to the naked eye. The Muslim community is changing with the 3rd generation and becoming less insular. These are the facts. The very thing that would stop the intermarrying and integration would be hostility to non-Whites. The right wing would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Ok first off Ireland today is not all that Irish anyway. Second, English people will NEVER quite like trust Irish people, not ever, and the second you say something disagreeable you are going to be in for a rant if you aren't dealing with part of the nanny state.

Going back to IQ that's what we are measuring here whether we like it or not. And that it shows some variation on very finicky genetic measures show both IQ and genes have at least some validity. The key here is we are talking about averages and correlations not how well you can play the trumpet or write science fiction.

As for the immigration, 10% change per decade is astronomical. I especially laugh at the talk about integrating and everyone becoming white. Eventually nobody is going to be white anyway because there's fewer barries to interbreeding so white and black will not be in existence.

However completely replacing and ultimately asianizing the whole world's population doesn't appeal to me and that is the end result that will occur and basically what's occurred over and over through history and prehistory. And UK is doing so at the speed of light, replacing rare and unique cultures and DNA with the massive monolithic but largely homogenous populations of the east.

@ El Medici "Thirdly, IQ is not a useful measure of intelligence as it is euro-centric."

IQ tests were devised to measure divers cognitive skills predictive of performance success in modern industrial, technological society and indeed IQ correlates with wage level and GDP (also with brain size, brain quality, head size, sperm motility etc.) IQ does not predict success in hunter-gatherer societies nor is it supposed to. Very few people live as HGs today, indeed nearly the entire world now tries to imitate Europe. So yes, if people want to live as "new age travellers" then they probably dont need a high IQ. We do need a high IQ population however and an intellectual elite if we are to maintain and to advance Western civilization.

It's worth pointing out that the lowest performing schools in GCSE (the exam taken at 16 in English and Welsh schools) league tables are in essentially 100% White British locales like the Isle of Wight and Rutland. London schools actually do rather well when social class of the intake is accounted for.

Firstly, in regards to IQ and other races. No serious non-biased scientist anywhere believes different races to have different intelligence levels. Differences in IQ levels from different populations are explained by social factors such as education, nutrition etc by experts.

Only people like me, people who honestly couldn't care less about feelings and have a genuine contempt for all ideology, especially in science, are fit to make such a judgement. I don't believe that you fall anywhere near that camp, and the points you make seem to be predictable knee-jerk apologetics. I seriously doubt you've objectively reviewed all available data on the matter. People who make instinctive conclusions on this subject (or any other), on either side of the fence, are contemptible. I don't believe there are large gaps in intelligence between races either, but my reasons for this are so different from yours I almost wish I'd reached another conclusion just to avoid conflation.

Secondly, if you look at the birth rates of minority populations in the UK, they're declining quite rapidly while the White British birth rate is climbing slowly.

You're ignoring the effects of ethnic interbreeding. You're also ignoring the fact that among younger generations the proportion of white Britons is already lower than what you seem to think it will stabilise at in 20 years' time.

Non-EU migration is being curtailed and it is harder to bring spouses in.

Since when were EU migrants white Britons?

It is important to remember that Europe is a very right wing continent. If the economy continues to worsen, and it will with rising oil prices and food prices then the Far Right will most likely gain power over any socialists/communists. What happens then is grim and has been witnessed before.

Honestly, I pity anyone who is so blatantly a mouthpiece of a dominant ideology. By this, of course, I don't mean that your positive attitude toward other races has anything to do with conditioning. But your actual rhetoric is abysmally unoriginal and clearly didn't originate in your own mind.

25% of babies born to foreign mothers is an interesting statistic. However, how many are from Irish, Polish, French etc White ethnic groups? Probably many, who will grow up British[...]

Poles are for the most part a visible minority. Rarely do I see a Pole who could pass as ethnically British. People will react to the features of their children as 'off' regardless of their accents and forenames. There really aren't many French in Britain, and Northern French are genetically close to Britons. The Irish are almost genetically interchangeable with Britons and can easily integrate in theory (though the economic conditions of potato famine migrants has had a lasting effect).

If you care about the actual British genetics then yes, a fair bit will be replaced. But ask why you care. You can't see it with your eyes walking down the road. Unless you think it's superior?

Yes, I can visually identify ethnically British people. I have a very high IQ, although I imagine most people have a sense for the subtle features of their own population. Ask yourself why do you care whether people accept migrants or not? And why do your concerns in this regard align perfectly with those of the state?

All minorities will slowly be absorbed and their descendants will look White British only they will have some unusual foreign genetics such as those White men in a North Yorkshire village who have West African Y-haplogroups.

I love how this boring example comes up every time such discussions are had. Try looking up actual genomic frequencies, and not the odd cherry-picked finding you're alerted to by the media.

But, at any rate, no, an average of 25% foreign admixture will be obvious to even the simplest of simpletons. And I'm of course naturally baffled at how, with all this going on, this 75% 'white' majority could possibly be maintained.

In regards to Irish Brits. Aside from recent migrants (Post-ww2) no-one cares if you say ''most of my family migrated from Ireland in the 1800s''. A lot of Irish surnames are assumed to be British by many anyway. The Northern Ireland/IRA issue affects recent migrants but in regards to your great grandparents no one cares at all.

Ironically, people care less about descendants of recent Irish immigrants, because these in general haven't been indigent. Tatty-famine 19th century Irish are much less integrated, and this has translated more to an overt class problem than an ethnic one.

Poor migrants' descendants have always worked their way out of the poor inner city areas. To deny that is to ignore the facts.

Yeah, that'd be why there are no children of 19th century Irish immigration in Manchester, Liverpool or Glasgow. They all moved out. There's no concentration of them there at all. I'm convinced. Not that I think this is a bad thing. I'm anti-integration.

"All minorities will slowly be absorbed and their descendants will look White British only they will have some unusual foreign genetics such as those White men in a North Yorkshire village who have West African Y-haplogroups."

I don't particularly want to get into political arguments on here but that's the exact opposite of what is happening.

In inner-city areas like Newham in London where this process started sixty years ago the indigenous population have been completely displaced apart from a mostly elderly last 15%. Once they've passed on that's it - complete replacement - starting in the inner-city areas and working outwards one neighborhood at a time.

I don't doubt what you say about prosperous towns out in the countryside but that's because the process hasn't reached there yet.

You say you don't have any non biased feelings yet you reveal not just an anti-immigration stance but an obsession with genetics. Genetics are skin deep. Show me a credible scientist who believes some races are more intelligent than others. No doubt the Romans thought the Britons were stupid because we didn't have cities of hundreds of thousands etc

Please do not lecture me on the Irish. I have an Irish grandfather, and many Irish ancestors from the 1800s who moved to London. I pass for 100% British, I have a British surname, I live in a wealthy middle class area. 25% of Brits have some close Irish blood and 10% are more than 25% Irish. The Irish descendants such as me are incredibly well integrated. Wayne Rooney was worshipped by the England supporters. I get people talking to me about how if you're not 100% English you shouldn't be here in relation to recent migrants yet they don't realise I'm about 20% English. Don't ignore the facts and create segregation where there is none.

You're refusing to believe in the existence of integration because you have an anti-integration stance. Mixed race children are good for someone who wants a White Britain in 2200AD. The 20th/21st century migration genetics will be absorbed. Deny that if you will, but I've provided evidence from my various local Pakistani communities where my generation of Pakistanis are no longer insular and have less kids.

If you look at the recent census, there's been a drop in the % of Caribbean ethnic people in London as well as White. The West Indians were some of the earliest Black 20th century migrants and now their descendants are wealthier they're leaving London too and having mixed race kids.

By the way, do you support the violent removal of other races? Would a holocaust of Asian and Black people in Britain please you? Because that is where this extreme obsession with someone's genetics lead.

I am not a mouthpiece for the dominant ideology. I am against non-EU immigration. I am against political Islam being accepted because we're afraid of Islam. I despise the fact that White Britons are a minority in London. However, these issues are not black and white (although they kind of are haha). Is Ian Wright British? He is such an English average bloke yet he is Black. I don't judge people on their race. I don't observe people's faces looking for clues about their great grandparent's ethnic origin. I couldn't care less if someone had Polish ancestors. If they feel British, would fight for Britain, pay taxes for our ill and vulnerable and speak our language then I will protect them to the end of the earth.

Truth is that history and prehistory show an endless cycle of newcomers outbreeding or simply killing off other ethnicities. If you have TEN PERCENT IMMIGRATION IN ONE DECADE this will be your fate, too. In asia and middle east this is happening right now and every time a regime changes the first step is to try and simply kill off anyone who is different. Europe is the only time in human history that a lot of small but distincy nations have existed in the long term without constant overturn followed by democide which is the norm everywhere else.

Also french from brittany and gascony are more english than the english are, they are the celts who left england when the roman empire collapsed.

Irish and welsh are more english than the english, too. The norman/londoner and east anglic looking people are much more recent newcomers.

Having some immigration is a good thing. Having mass waves of it is only a service to big business. That's why any nationalism is equated with racism today. How dare you want to have your own homeland that can't be stolen from you, peasant? Globalisation will be the end of anything good on the planet.

No, I say I don't have any biased feelings, which should be evident from the fact that I don't hold that there are any vast differences in average intelligence between human populations.

yet you reveal not just an anti-immigration stance but an obsession with genetics.

You have trouble with logic, I see. You claim that immigration will have no impact whatsoever. You use groups that are genetically near-identical to Britons as 'evidence' that genetically distant populations will absorb unnoticeably into the genepool.

Genetics are skin deep. Show me a credible scientist who believes some races are more intelligent than others. No doubt the Romans thought the Britons were stupid because we didn't have cities of hundreds of thousands etc

More effeminate blathering. You've got yourself so worked up into an emotional tizz, you've started arguing against positions I quite clearly don't hold.

Please do not lecture me on the Irish. I have an Irish grandfather, and many Irish ancestors from the 1800s who moved to London. I pass for 100% British, I have a British surname, I live in a wealthy middle class area. 25% of Brits have some close Irish blood and 10% are more than 25% Irish. The Irish descendants such as me are incredibly well integrated. Wayne Rooney was worshipped by the England supporters. I get people talking to me about how if you're not 100% English you shouldn't be here in relation to recent migrants yet they don't realise I'm about 20% English. Don't ignore the facts and create segregation where there is none.

What's hilarious is that I have Irish ancestry myself. You're such an unobjective person that you can't even begin to fathom someone as objective as me, someone whose personal conditions matter not a jot to his observations of reality, could exist. You thought I was coming from a place of contempt for the Irish. Wrong.

You're refusing to believe in the existence of integration because you have an anti-integration stance. Mixed race children are good for someone who wants a White Britain in 2200AD. The 20th/21st century migration genetics will be absorbed.

Again, the fact that you can't tell when people have 25% non-white admixture does not mean that I can't.

By the way, do you support the violent removal of other races? Would a holocaust of Asian and Black people in Britain please you? Because that is where this extreme obsession with someone's genetics lead.

You're the liberal version of the "Will someone please think about the children???" crowd. I laughed. Hilariously, I've revealed precious little of what my stance is on anything, and you're clearly not going to be the one who 'cracks it'. All I'm interested in here is exploring the anti-scientific and irrational nature of ideologues, and I believe I've succeeded quite well. A victory for science.

I am not a mouthpiece for the dominant ideology. I am against non-EU immigration.

Do you support violent action against non-EU immigration? What a horrendous possibility. Do you support a holocaust?????

I am against political Islam being accepted because we're afraid of Islam. I despise the fact that White Britons are a minority in London. However, these issues are not black and white (although they kind of are haha).

Really all this immigration is about the economy. Our entire economic system is based on exponential expansion. It is a giant Ponzi scheme. Without population expansion and the concommitant goods that need to be bought the whole system collapses. Watch a free online video called "Money as debt" if you want to be truly scared.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8

And no, its not the anarchists. Relevant to the problems in Greece now I come to think of it. Not a perfect video but it makes the point.

The last thing big business wants is a stable, sustainable population. Declining population is anathema. So what do you do when the British stop breeding? You bring in folk who do. Educated folk dont have kids? Well that can be fixed too. :? Not really that paranoid, yet.

It IS about the economy, but it's about a few rich people becoming more rich by keeping labor prices down, where it should be about doing what's best for your current population.

http://anthropologyreviews.com/?p=249

Keep in mind, too, intelligence is X-Linked and many of the findings for neanderthal DNA are as well.

I don't put this out there due to any racial motivation but because the point should be made DNA does matter. While mtDNA has been washed away the X-DNA of neanderthals has pretty much flourished, and X DNA is obviously heavily selected on.

In a way it won't matter as positive genes like that will always survive but for people actual living in a country who want to maintain a nice living it's another story.

The latest demographic news shows that the population in Britain has risen by 420,000 in just the last year, which is the fastest rise in Europe. The immigrant birth rate has accelerated and now 26% of new births in Britain are to first generation immigrants. If we include births to second and third generation immigrants then at least 35% of new births must now be to immigrants and that figure is rising fast.

The indigenous British nation simply cannot survive unless we accept the basic principle that the nation state is the creation of the nation and it exists only to ensure the survival of the indigenous nation, whatever that takes. Any compromise on that basic principle means that the nation will be replaced and disappear. It is a simple choice between national survival and national demise. That is how the world works, you either do what you have to in order to survive or you die, everything else is an illusion. Sadly we are not even close as a people to the acceptance of the basic state principle, the people are constantly brainwashed by the multicult mass media. We will not survive unless the economy collapses and even then it may be too late to reverse the flood. Britain presents a case study for anthropologists of how a nation can die through media induced mass ideological disorientation and a hostile political elite.

The total population of the UK jumped by 0.7 per cent to 63.7 million between the middle of 2011 and 2012, according to the Office for National Statistics.

That equates to an increase of 419,900 people in a single year – two and a half times the growth in Germany, which has seen rapid immigration in recent years.

It means that the population of the UK is growing by 48 people an hour and 1,150 a day.

According to the ONS, the biggest factor in the increase was a surging birth rate – with the highest number of babies born for 40 years.

That provides evidence that so-called “recession babies” have helped reshape the population.

But the high birth rate was itself also partly fuelled by migration, with growing numbers of babies born to foreign-born parents.

There were 813,200 births in the UK in the 12 months to June 2012, the highest number since 1972.

Of those 25.9 per cent had a foreign born mother. By contrast 10 years earlier only one in six new mothers were born abroad.

While Britain has the third highest population in Europe, behind Germany and France, it had by far the biggest single increase in a year.

[...]

Together London and the South East accounted for 53 per cent of the UK’s population growth last year.

Even excluding immigration, so called natural growth – the difference between births and deaths was – in London, which has the youngest population in the UK, was 20 times that in the whole of Scotland for example.

It has been announced today that results have fallen for the second year in a row for the 600,000 students who took GCSEs. The decline in exam results is general with a drop in students who attained A or A*, C to A, or any pass. The decline is especially dramatic in science subjects, where 7.6% less students received C to A than last year. GCSE exam results declined last year for the first time ever. They had consistently increased year on year for decades. The establishment offers an array of excuses as if there were no factors in the past when the overall results yet rose.

The decline in exam results appears to be consistent with that the Flynn Effect has run its course (whereby IQ rises with improved social and educational conditions) and no longer masks the decline in genetic general intelligence. Indeed the IQ of exam age children has fallen, especially in the high IQ band, in a dramatic reversal of the consistent improvement seen over decades and it is now lower than thirty years ago. Moreover it has been demonstrated that the underlying genetic general intelligence has declined by the equivalent of 15 IQ points compared to the Victorians.

(Economics is complex but it may be worth noting that the British economy is still 3% down on 2008 and living standards have fallen, consistent with the marked correlation between IQ, personal wealth and GDP.)

It will be interesting to see whether this downward educational trend continues or accelerates in the coming years and whether the media will continue to find excuses to explain away the decline in genetic general intelligence, IQ and exam results. Britain has now gone over its IQ peak and has started on the downward slope.

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